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Endurance on the Field, and at Work

This interview with Kathy Button Bell, vice president and chief marketing officer of Emerson, the manufacturing and technology company in St. Louis, was conducted and condensed by Adam Bryant.

Q. What were some important lessons you’ve learned through the years?

A. I learned a lot being a commodities trader. Trading teaches you a lot of lessons. It’s like life, because things come and go really quickly, and really bad things and really great things happen. I learned you have to get over the bad things quickly because you have to stay present in the moment to make the next choice.

That lesson of getting over things, especially as a woman in business, is super-helpful, so you don’t linger on things and you don’t lie in bed at night awake worrying about stuff. You move on to things that you can make better. If you look at employees or bosses, the best ones have great energy and are good at applying it fast enough to solve problems.

Q. What about earlier in life — high school, college? Were you in leadership roles there?

A. I went to a high school that let you be a great leader. I was in a terrific group of women. There were only 19 girls in my class, and I got 15 varsity letters in sports. One of my best friends and I were captains of the basketball team. We won 33 consecutive games.

Then I went to Princeton and played varsity field hockey. And I actually played lacrosse my freshman year. I hadn’t played before but made the J.V. team. I played varsity field hockey, and my second year there, the U.S. Olympic coach became our coach. That taught me everything about myself, about how hard you can work at something, how you can die trying. I would have done anything for that woman. She inspired us to do stuff that was impossible.

A. She just knew how to inspire you to do more. The thing she always tried to teach me to do is not say I’m sorry. I was so painfully polite, and if I missed a pass or something I’d apologize. She said, “You need to get over that.” She was kind and tough, which are maybe the two best things that a boss could be.

I think everybody benefits from having played sports. It makes you a good sharer, for one thing, in lots of ways. And it makes you more empathetic in general. I love to see sports in a résumé. A woman who works for me right now was a Harvard swimmer, and I can tell that every time I talk to her about something. She’s an endurance athlete. She’s tough in a pinch. She will get it done. And I respect that enormously.

It’s your middle that you depend on — the hard part of you, the tough part in the middle that goes: “Oh, I can stand up in that storm. That’s O.K.”

Q. Do you think people can get those qualities just as much from being in an orchestra, or in a dance troupe?

A. There’s something about how hard sports are physically that’s helpful. I travel a lot internationally. I do think it’s an endurance sport. I don’t know how you do that without the energy it takes to do the other things. And you have to have energy so you can think smart when you’re tired. Some people just lie down and just die when they’re tired. I always say travel is a callus. And you get better and better and better and better at it. I think the travel thing is a big deal, and I think it separates people.

Q. What were some other big influences on the way you lead and manage?

A. At Converse, I had a fabulous boss. She solved problems the moment they happened. I mean, you weren’t even finished with your sentence, and she was picking up the phone starting to solve it, because it just seems those little problems can all of a sudden balloon into something. The faster you deal with them, the more you nip them in the bud.

By the same token, you prioritize better as you get older, and you realize that time can also be your friend. Some things actually simply will go away, and you have to get smarter and smarter to know which ones are which. I think I do a much better job of saying: “You know what? Let that sit.”

There’s some old marketing axiom of, “You never need to make a marketing decision too soon.” It means that more truth and information will emerge over time. But usually you have to solve interpersonal problems right away. Also, when something good happens, take wild advantage of it right away because sometimes it goes away.

Photo

Kathy Button Bell is vice president and chief marketing officer at Emerson, the manufacturing and technology company in St. Louis. A sports background, she says, “makes you a good sharer” and more empathetic in the office.Credit
Earl Wilson/The New York Times

Q. In terms of celebrating?

A. Yes, or just calling the person to say, “Oh, this great thing happened.” Because it may be the only good news you have to tell a superior or somebody who works for you, before you have to give them bad news later sometime. Because bad things happen all the time.

Q. When you think back over your leadership and management style, how would you say it’s evolved? What are you doing more of, less of?

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A. I am much more patient — a hundred times more patient than I was. I also prioritize much better, which comes out of patience. I think patience, by far, teaches you what to do. The mistake people make is they try to do everything. Dave Farr, our C.E.O., says that if you have a to-do list of 10 things, rip it and do three. Just do three.

I’m really better at putting my time and attention on the business issues that matter the most. I always say that one does what one likes to do. If you really think about it, you should like the things that are the biggest things.

Q. What else?

A. I think I’m much more thoughtful about talent, too. I was probably not as good a manager when I was younger because you’re so worried about what you’re doing, as opposed to developing people. I don’t think I understood that well enough. I love mentoring people, but I think when I was younger and mentored people I was trying to get them to the next level, not get them to the C.E.O.’s office.

Q. Can you elaborate on that point?

A. I’d say I’ve shifted from shallow to deep in terms of mentoring. Now we talk a lot more about looking at the end of the story, of where you envision yourself. Do you see yourself as an operations leader? As a president of one of our companies? Or do you want to be in my job someday? And then asking: What do you need to do to make up your mind about that? What should you try along the way to give yourself a better sense? It’s like playing as many sports as you can to figure out which one you’re good at.

I think the shallow-versus-deep issue is about asking those bigger, richer questions about who they want to be. I think you want to ask them about being delighted in life and what would make them incredibly happy. And what would make them proud? I think it’s easier to look at that instead of saying, “O.K., you need to dress better for work or take less vacation.”

Q. Any other observations about the younger generation?

A. I think it’s true of everyone when they’re younger, but I see it especially in this younger generation, who seem worried about, “I need the list of things I need to do to get promoted.” I would never have asked for that. Maybe I should have, but I would never have asked for it. They often come to you with their little list because they want to know how they’re going to be measured. I think mentoring people past their lists is where you want to go.

A. I think the No. 1 thing is, you look at someone’s experience, and you want to see consistency of purpose, maybe of outperforming. One of the big things I always ask is, “What was your favorite job you ever had?” That’s usually where their greatest success was. So you follow up, and you ask about failures. But people are so polished on that question now that I find them less polished on the success question.

Probably the most important thing is a cultural fit for Emerson. If you don’t have it, you’re done. And I think “authentic” is the word I use on that, and I can tell that in a person faster than whether they are smart. They’d better be real, that is the No. 1 thing. And if they’re not energetic, if they’re not authentic, if they’re defensive, they’re not going to make it. Defensiveness is an awful trait. We’ve also put in a much better culture of listening, because that’s part of making people innovative. So I’m trying to hire people who have empathy.

Q. How do you find that out in an interview?

A. I think you can feel empathy pretty fast from people. I think you can also tell by what kind of jobs they’ve had, and what they liked. You get at someone’s personal values a little bit.

I would actually say that most of the time when you have a failed employee, it’s a person who lacks empathy, and they didn’t hear what the organization was telling them. They don’t hear the cues. Lots of very smart people lack empathy. They’re able to test their way through life and get A’s. No one tests you on empathy. You can also learn a lot about somebody from the questions they ask you.

Q. And what kind of questions do you like to hear?

A. I’d like them to ask me why I like working where I work, as opposed to, “How do you get ahead?” And I think those are different questions.

Very often women will ask me, “How is it to be a woman here?” That’s a thoughtful, squishy question — a little bit of, “How will I do in this environment?” So they care about that connection between people. I think you get a sense of whether they are friendly people from their questions, as well.

This interview has been edited and condensed.
A longer version is at nytimes.com
/ businessday. A collection of past interviews,
searchable by topic, is at
nytimes.com/corneroffice.

A version of this article appears in print on July 3, 2011, on Page BU2 of the New York edition with the headline: Endurance on the Field, and at Work. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe